CTRLALTDEL - reference manual online

Set the function of the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination.

Chapter

August 2011

CTRLALTDEL(8) System Administration CTRLALTDEL(8)NAME
ctrlaltdel - set the function of the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination
SYNOPSIS
ctrlaltdel hard|soft
DESCRIPTION
Based on examination of the linux/kernel/sys.c code, it is clear that there are two sup‐
ported functions that the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence can perform: a hard reset, which immedi‐
ately reboots the computer without calling sync(2) and without any other preparation; and
a soft reset, which sends the SIGINT (interrupt) signal to the init process (this is
always the process with PID 1). If this option is used, the init(8) program must support
this feature. Since there are now several init(8) programs in the Linux community, please
consult the documentation for the version that you are currently using.
ctrlaltdel is usually used in the /etc/rc.local file.
OPTIONS
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
FILES
/etc/rc.local
SEE ALSO
init(8)
AUTHOR
Peter Orbaek ⟨@daimi.aau.dk⟩
AVAILABILITY
The ctrlaltdel command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux
Kernel Archive ⟨ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.util-linux August 2011 CTRLALTDEL(8)